Candy Hearts
by Wolfwood11
Summary: Valentines Day one shot. Friendship fic. GSR hint. Sometimes it's the littlest things that make you appreaciate your friends and family even more.


This is just a friendship fic, one-shot. Sorta a "feel good" fic if you will. Sorry to all you die-hard GSR and Snickers fans out there. (There won't be a shortage of 'ship Valentines Day fics) (Small hints here and there, I leave it up to you to interpret them.) Catherine POV sorta; set probably around season 3 or so.

Disclaimer: Don't own CSI, it belongs to people who own it, which obviously isn't me…

Just a Valentine's Day ficcy for the fun of it. My first CSI fic, so here's an attempt at keeping everyone in character…Reviews, comments, criticism, and flames accepted. I had no beta, so all mistakes are mine.

Candy Hearts

Catherine sighed as she headed for the locker room. Shift was just about over and she was tired.

_No, tired doesn't quite cut it,_ she mused. _More like 'completely exhausted'._

She had stayed up since Lindsay had gotten home from school getting food prepped for the Valentines Day party at school. Why her daughter had volunteered her to make the cookies she'd never know… A quick trip to the store was in order too. They didn't have enough boxes of candy hearts for the valentines for Lindsay's class. They had finally gotten everything straight just in time for bed. A weary smile crossed her lips as she remembered the mad rush they pulled off.

Shrugging on her coat, Catherine sighed. The dead body at the Monaco didn't help her mood either. Someone found it when the service elevator jammed on the way down. It turns out the body had been dumped in the shaft and had gotten tangled, and mangled, in the elevator cables. Good thing everyone was fairly busy because of the Valentine's Day rush in Vegas, the body was found after being there for only one day. There was no evidence recovered from the body itself, but there was plenty of evidence found on the third floor. Threads not matching the victim were found in the shaft and caught in the doors, but they were consistent with the color of the employee uniforms, which probably didn't mean much. There was a set of smudged prints near the bottom of the doors leading to the elevator along with blood drops on the track of the door at the bottom. Neither the prints nor the blood matched the vics so accident was ruled out. This suggested the killer pried open the doors to dump the body after sustaining some sort of injury. An argument between employees earlier that week gave them a strong lead.

She knew Nick and Warrick could handle the rest of the case. They had already gathered a list of suspects and gotten DNA samples. Nothing left but to match them up with the blood sample and fingerprints. A slam-dunk case. The boys would be fine without her tonight.

Catherine grabbed her purse and slammed her locker shut. She couldn't wait to get home and see Lindsay off to school. Valentines Day parties were always the best.

She quickly made her way towards the door, a cup of hot coffee and a long nap were calling her name, but as she passed the AV lab, she heard someone else calling instead.

"Hey Cath!"

She stopped and leaned back to peek and see who it was. She smiled when she saw it was Nick. Turning on heel she walked through the open door and stood next to the computer. Noticing her coat he started to apologize, "Sorry Cath, I didn't know you were leaving, I just thought you'd like to see this."

"It's okay Nicky. Whatcha got?"

"Well," He spun towards the console and typed in some commands. "I've got some surveillance footage from the Monaco. It's not of the elevator, but it's just as good."

"Hey guys." Warrick entered, print out in hand. "Just got back from trace. Turns out the fibers we got from the doors matches the fabric used in the employee's uniforms, like you said Cath. If we can put an employee wearing one at the elevator during the time of the murder, then it's case closed."

Nick smiled. "Already a step ahead of you bro'. See, this camera's captured all employee activity in the hallway leading to the elevator. I've got footage from a few hours ahead of the time of death. This should have our murderer on his way there and back from the scene." He let the video roll, the counter on the bottom scrolling by. "There's only two people who show up on this footage wearing employee uniforms. Neither one is our victim, so we can assume they ran into the killer somewhere between the elevator and this camera. Both people here," the footage stopped, showing the face of Patrick Corrly. The video continued. "And here," again it stopped, this time Aaron Mason was shown. "Are seen going towards the elevator. Mason comes back first, five minutes later." The footage rolled. "But watch. It takes Corrly twenty minutes to come back into the shot, plus notice something missing?"

"The uniform." Warrick replied right away. "But that can't prove anything yet. Maybe he spilled something on it and had to change."

It was Catherine's turn to jump in. "But then why couldn't we find the uniform anywhere? The laundry hadn't been cleaned yet and there weren't any uniforms in the basket."

"Besides, Mr. Corrly's statement was that he had grabbed the wrong key and had to go back to get the right one from the storage room," added Warrick.

"Right. And I don't think it takes someone twenty minutes to grab a new set of keys. We've got our guy." Nick finished with a smile.

"Great, I think you two big strong men can finish this up without me then," quipped Catherine giving each of them a pat on the shoulder.

"Oh, sorry Cath, I just thought you might like to see me break the case." Nick's grin grew wider.

"You broke the case? I'm the one who ran all the trace. I got this one buddy," laughed Warrick giving his friend a playful shove.

Catherine chuckled at the two rivals and was almost out the door when Warrick called out, "Hey Cath, just one favor. Could you stop by the DNA lab and tell Greg to hurry up with the DNA results on Corrly? We want to get outta here too y'know."

"Sure thing Warrick, catch you two later," and with a wave she disappeared around the corner.

She was still smiling when she opened the door to the DNA lab, not surprised by the blaring rock that greeted her. "Hey Greggo," she stopped short when he looked up. "What is that on your head?"

"Oh you mean this?" with a flourish he pointed to the pink heart candy sticking to his forehead. In it's bright read text, was the message "KISS ME". "Just a little friendly Valentines Day spirit. Where's yours?"

"What are you, 5 years old?"

"You don't like? Man, I was hoping you'd like it. Maybe I should try another one." He quickly picked the pink heart off and produced a box from under the lab desk. "How about this one? It says "HOT STUFF"." He licked the green heart and stuck it on his forehead.

Catherine shook her head and sighed, but couldn't hide her smile. "So this is what you've been doing instead of processing our evidence? Have you shown anyone else your spirit yet?

"No, but I was going to look for Sara end of shift. Would you happen to know where she is?"

This time Catherine laughed, her smile bright. "Nope, sorry Greg. Oh, I almost forgot. Make sure you get the DNA results of Patrick Corrly to Warrick and Nick. We just need to confirm what the evidence says."

"Sure thing, I got it right here. Perfect match to the blood at the scene."

"Great, oh and here," She reached into her purse and produced a new box of candy hearts. "If I remember correctly, one of these said "LOVER BOY"." She tossed him the box. "Happy Valentines Day Greg."

"You do care, thanks Catherine," he said with a grin and took off in search of Nick and Warrick.

As she walked past the locker room again, it hit her. She had forgotten the flowers in her locker. Good thing she ran into the guys or she would have completely forgotten. Grabbing the bouquet she headed towards Grissom's office.

Knocking on the doorframe she walked in. No Grissom, big surprise. Probably off working on some "experiment" or something else of great importance. She laid the flowers on his desk and smiled as she noticed a single rose on his desk. Beneath lay a simple white card.

"From Sara."

Catherine couldn't help but smile.

"Hey there girly! How was your day?" asked Catherine as she lifted her giggling daughter in her arms.

"It was great mommy, we had tons of candy, and a heart shaped cake and Zack told me he liked me."

"Wow, sounds like you had a busy day. What else did you do today?"

"Tommy and Cam fought over who liked Lissa more, and Mrs. Kessler blushed a lot when her boyfriend came in and gave her flowers, and look what Davie showed me how to do."

Lindsay reached into her bag of valentines and pulled out a candy heart. Giggling she licked the candy and stuck it to her forehead. The words "CUTIE PIE" stared back at Catherine.

With a genuine smile and before her daughter could see her tears, Catherine reached over and hugged Lindsay tight. "I love you," she whispered.

"I love you too mommy."

"Happy Valentines day sweetie."


End file.
